Hamilton staying positive after McLaren driver is forced to retire AGAIN in Singapore

Lewis Hamilton is hoping fortune will favour his brave effort to win this year's Formula One world title after his latest retirement.

Hamilton looked to be cruising to victory in Sunday's Singapore Grand Prix when his McLaren ground to a halt on lap 23 with a gearbox failure.

It was Hamilton's fourth race from the last seven without scoring a point, with none of the issues his fault, to leave him now 52 points adrift of championship leader Fernando Alonso with 150 available.

Not again! Lewis Hamilton (right) had to retire form the Singapore Grand Prix after his car's engine failed

The wins in Hungary and Italy aside that have kept him in the hunt, it has been a wretched, unlucky run for the 27-year-old.

In the European Grand Prix in Valencia, Hamilton was running third when Williams' Pastor Maldonado ran into him on the penultimate lap.

In Germany, an early puncture dropped him to the rear of the field from where he failed to recover before retiring with a second puncture late on.

In Belgium, Hamilton was taken out at the first corner as Romain Grosjean caused a four car pile-up that led to a one-race ban for the Frenchman.

Then there was Sunday under the lights of the Marina Bay Street Circuit and the gearbox gremlins.

But a resilient Hamilton, after a period to calm himself and take stock, said: 'The car is in a good position, so if we can pick up our reliability then we can attack the final six races.

Cruising: Hamilton had been in good stead to win the race before the incident

Gutted: Hamilton looked disappointed in the paddock after he was forced to retire

'It is going to be hard to close the gap because Sebastian (Vettel), Fernando (Alonso) and Kimi (Raikkonen) keep on finishing race after race.

'I just have to hope this is the end of our bad luck this year. We have had such bad luck with crashes, DNFs, so let's hope we have some positive races from now on.

'We definitely have the car to win, perhaps a one-two. I just hope at some stage the fortune will be on our side and we'll get that.'

With regard the title, which Hamilton rightly concedes is becoming 'harder and harder', he added: 'We have six races left, so I have to keep pushing and win the rest of them.

'I won't give up. I will keep on going to the end because although I lost a lot of points in this race it is not the end of the world.'

Why always me? Hamilton has ended four of the last seven races on no points

Vettel rebounded from his Red Bull's alternator failure in Italy a fortnight ago to record back-to-back wins in Singapore and close the gap to Alonso, who was third behind Jenson Button in his McLaren.

'The championship now looks better than before,' said Vettel, now 29 points adrift.

'There are a lot of races left and it's difficult to predict what's going to happen, so first of all we have to make sure we finish the races.

'The pace is there, and even if we are not quick enough to win then it is good enough to collect a lot of points.'

Paul Di Resta produced the best result of his F1 career to finish fourth for Force India, with Raikkonen sixth to fall 45 points behind Alonso.

Red Bull's Mark Webber is 62 points down after losing his point for 10th with a retrospective drive-through penalty and 20 seconds added to his time for leaving the track and gaining an advantage late on.

The busy stewards also hit Mercedes' Michael Schumacher with a 10-place grid penalty for the next race in Japan after he ran into the back of Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne, causing one of two safety car periods.

Maybe next time: The latest result was a serious knock to the Englishman's title challenge